If you were to mix you own fuel, Ethanol and gas, instead of using pump gas, why not mix AV gas or racing gas and see what happens.
Let me know how it works, I might try it. If it works!
Seriously, I think the E85 may have some potential.
Now that's a damn good idea. :idea:
I bet you could look up on the net just how to do it too.
There's lots of corn available around here. I could go down the street and get a pickup full in 10 minutes.
You could sell the excess and make some extra coin too. :idea:
You any good at shucking corn??
Check this out:
Making your own E85 (http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id36.html)
You can mix it with whatever you'd like. The reason it's got 15% gas in it is just to make it undrinkable. If it's drinkable the ATF&E want's thier whiskey tax.
Gas by itself works great and ethanol by itself works great too. Unfortunately when you have to mix in gasoline to appease people that really messes up your project.
If it were legal to run straight ethanol, you'd be shooting for somewhere around 160 proof. That means your fuel is 20% water. In this instance that's not a bad thing. You basically have built in water injection and all the goodness that comes with that.Extra compression, latent heat energy, steam cleaning, anti-detonate, etc.... And in a roundabout way and additional 20% increase in fuel output. Using 160 proof that means it only takes 4 gallons of ethanol to make 5 gallons of fuel.
When gasoline gets added to the mix, the water will fall out of suspension and cause all the bad stuff.
Now I did find one small loophole in the law about the denaturing rules. If you add fuel to your machinery on the same lot it was distilled at you don't have to add a poison. Basically that was written for a working farm. You can distill it and pour it straight into the combine without having to poison the golden grain.
I was thinking if I ever got my still running I'd just fill up the tanks in my driveway and be all legal like.
I've done a lot of research into brewing my own ethanol but unfortunately the still was going to run me right at $1000 to build. By the time I built it, sourced some sort of mash ingredients, and got fuel for the still, my break even would be pretty far off.
There's one other GREAT benefit to home distilling though. Our government in it's grand wisdom wants to encourage alternate fuels. If you distill at home you're eligible for a $.52/gallon tax CREDIT for every gallon you make. Even if you sell it, you still get the credit. (the leftover mash can be sold as badass cattle feed too)
If you were to set up a still and really crank out some golden grain, you could basically get out of paying taxes.
This is getting more interesting yet now.
I tell you what I would really like to do is have a fuel source to heat and provide electricity for the house here. The cost per year is way over the top.
Average about $ 600./mo year round for electric and LP gas.
:idea: I'm going to have to do some more checking into this. :idea:
A home brewed fuel source. :idea: Tax credits. :idea: Fuel for the boat engine. :idea: A still in the back yard :idea: On site moonshine production. :idea:
If you could get the cost to about $ 1./ gal to produce and get .52/ gal tax credit that would look pretty good in the long run.
I never envisioned myself as operating a still before.
It does seem pretty interesting.
The trick would be to get in good with the local farmers market and such. I'm not sure what their rate of spoilage is, but any thing with sugar in it can be made into moonshi..... err, motor fuel.
In my mind I'm trying to work out as much free energy as possible and the ability to make everything as autopilot as possible.
If I could verify a source of some free produce and some sort of free scrap wood, that would cut down on the mash costs and the heating costs.
The trick would be just to spend the $1000 to get the still up and running.
At first I wanted to build the still for the coolness factor. Right now it woudn't be feasible to convert any of my cars over. But being able to not pay taxes and run my boat for free does sound pretty cool.
Oh yeah, did you catch that bit about the taxes? It's a tax credit not a tax break.
it just so happens that i have a neighbor with a still
Does he sell it for less than $3.00 a gallon??
Does he sell it for less than $3.00 a gallon??
lol, he generally doesn't sell it.
it just so happens that i have a neighbor with a still
If it's 160 (or greater) proof you can. Just bump up your jetting for the golden grain.
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